The article is devoted to the new European paradigm of «statehood» in that its peculiar form in which it was assimilated by prominent Russian historians. In this respect the author examines works of S.M.Soloviev, K.D.Kavelin and B.N.Chicherin. Thus the concept of «statehood» is being developed and defined within proper theoretical context and has to facilitate understanding of the Russian history all over its continuity. However the author emphasizes that theoretical assumptions of historians should be analyzed very attentively and require a profound understanding. For experience of new European interpretation of the «state» and «statehood» concepts are very different from what one can find in the Russian sources of the pre-Peter I times.